


Divination

by NyxEtoile



Series: Complicated [1]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mostly gen but I get a little shippy as it goes on, Post season finale, Romantic Friendship, casework
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 11:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxEtoile/pseuds/NyxEtoile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the Season One finale Sherlock and Watson have been muddling through. A heat wave and a serial murder change all that. The puzzle wakes Sherlock from the daze he's been in, but also brings up demons they've been ignoring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first Elementary story and my firs fan fic in years. Please be kind. Definitely multi chapter. Probably the start of a series. If you don't like Joan/Sherlock romance elements you probably won't like where this is going. They are working a case, so there is talk of murder and mutilation but not overly graphic.

It was New York’s hottest July in recorded history. The hottest day on record was July 9th, 1936, with one hundred and six degrees Fahrenheit. While they had not yet topped 103 it had been the longest string of three digit days and despite the unending optimism of the weather channel there was no foreseeable end to the heat wave.

Joan Watson was pretty sure if it had ever gotten like this during the colonial days, before air conditioning and ice cream, they’d have given up on this whole New World thing and given Iceland another try. She supposed at this point they’d invested too much into the city and should just muddle through. 

Muddling through had been the theme of her summer so far, she thought, walking back to the brownstone with her groceries one balmy evening. After the roller coaster that had been Irene - Moriarty, she corrected herself, though privately she just thought of the woman as “The Bitch,” - she thought muddling was probably a reasonable place to be. 

She headed up the steps of the brownstone, her thin, cotton sundress damp from perspiration and two ten minute walks in the humidity. Sherlock was right where she’d left him, shirtless in an easy chair, watching his bank of TV’s, a swamp cooler blowing across him. They’d purchased window air conditioners at the beginning of the heat wave but they’d proven too much for the house’s wiring. One remained in her bedroom and Sherlock seemed content with his fan and bag of ice. 

“I’m back,” she called, taking her purchases straight to the kitchen.

“I hope you didn’t heavily purchase perishables,” he replied. “They’ve announced rolling power cuts to lessen the energy load.”

She groaned, looking at her bag of produce and deli meat. “Sandwiches and fruit salad for dinner it is,” she muttered to herself, busying herself unloading the groceries. 

If she was being entirely honest with herself Sherlock hadn’t even hit muddling. They’d caught two cases since Moriarty’s arrest and neither had been particularly challenging. “Well within the scope of your ever growing deductive skills,” he’d told her. She had taken the lead on both, with Sherlock pitching in on some file reading and brainstorming but not really. . . engaging. She hadn’t seen the passion he usually had, the fire, the thrill of the deduction. He had been numb, for lack of a better word. And since the thermometer had blown up there had been no cases so she didn’t have even that to try to draw him out. After going through tough love, maternal coaxing, zen platitudes and even quoting incorrect trivia just to get him to correct her she gave up. Eventually she just decided to act like everything was normal and hope he’d find his way out of it on his own. She didn’t think he was near a relapse, or suicide, or even proper clinical depression. She had no diagnosis for him and therefore couldn’t begin to cure him.

She poured herself a glass of ice water, then a second for him and brought them out to the TV room. He had always been full of energy and emotion, never able to sit still. It was hard to see him sitting there like a lump, not even fidgeting. Though she hardly felt like moving in this weather, either.

She handed him the water glass and received a vaguely grateful grunt in return. She stood next to the chair, watching the TVs a minute, before the cacophony grew to much for her and she retreated to a more peaceful room.

***

The first black out hit just before she was about to go to bed. Still, it was a shock to be plunged into darkness halfway up the steps. The silence was sudden and disconcerting as well, with Sherlock’s wall of TVs suddenly muted. She heard his quiet tread on the floor boards. “The city seems to be conspiring to send me to bed,” he commented dryly from somewhere to her right. 

“You could always do something by candlelight,” she suggested, peering up the stairs, frozen until her eyes adjusted.

“I would think you’d be concerned about me falling asleep and setting the house a flame.”

“Good point. Go to bed.” She could make out shapes now and took a hesitant step up. “Going to be unpleasant without my air conditioner,” she added, but there was no response. She hoped he’d actually get some sleep and crept the rest of the way to her room blindly.

***

Joan awoke the next morning to three rapid knocks at her door and then the crash of said door being slammed open. She went up on an elbow, blinking groggily and realized two things. One, she was in only a thin camisole and panties, the sheets in a sweaty tangle on her legs. And two, Sherlock was at the foot of her bed, talking animatedly about something. She was so dumbfounded by the second thing it took her half a minute to be embarrassed at the first. 

“Sherlock.” She made a grab for the tangled sheets, giving a futile tug to cover herself with one.

“Oh, there’s no time for girlish modesty, Watson!” he proclaimed, turning to her closet to find her clothes. “I assure you, you possess nothing that I have not seen countless times before.”

She stared at his back as he tossed a bra, sleeveless blouse and skirt onto her bed. She couldn’t recall exactly when he’d started this, choosing outfits for her as part of his rude awakening routine. At first she’d been tempted not to wear it, to take the time to choose her own clothes, simply on principle. But she wasn’t that petty and besides, he did a decent job of selecting things, even learning her preference for layers in cooler weather. What really baffled her was his ability to select a stylish, coordinated outfit for her in seconds and yet he’d left the house in orange pants on more then one occasion.

She pulled the bra under the sheet, tenting it so she could tug the cami down and put the undergarment on. He kept his back to her, staring into the depths of her closet. “Where are we going?” she asked, voice still sleep rough.

“We’re expected at a crime scene. Gregson called me not five minutes ago with the case.”

He was all but humming with energy, the opposite of the man she’d been living with these last few months. She tugged the camisole back up and slipped the blouse on before shifting to wiggle into the skirt. “You all but ignored the last two cases. What’s different about this one? You can turn around,” she added, standing to make sure her clothes were straight.

He whirled, eyes sweeping her from head to toe as if admiring his handy work. “The last two cases were dull. Nothing to sink my teeth into. This one, however, has potential. I may be wrong, but this one could be very interesting.” 

She picked up her hair brush and started brushing her hair out rapidly. “Why?”

He rocked on his heels before heading for the door. “The victim, Watson, is a medium. A fortune teller. And she was killed with her own crystal ball!”

The last words were called back from the hall as he strode away, leaving her to finish her morning routine. Joan found herself gaping at the empty doorway before feeling the faintest shimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, Sherlock was back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The case begins. Some description of gore here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely comments! I'll get these chapters up as quick as I can get 'em written and edited.

It is, Sherlock thought as they walked down the block towards the swarm of police and yellow caution tape, a bit like coming up for air after snorkeling for too long. He was used to the muted colors and sounds of the underwater world, the sense of detachment. Being on the surface again seemed overly bright and frantic. He wasn’t sure if he’d adjust or be forced to dive again.

His mouth twisted in irritation. Extended metaphors were not his forte. He should have stopped while he was ahead. He glanced briefly at Watson, in step beside him. He’d been amused to note her summer shoes did not have the same towering heels as her colder season footwear. She was suddenly several inches shorter, the top of her head barely brushing his chin. She’d noticed his initial looks and muttered something about sandals not having proper ankle support before brushing past him out of the brownstone. 

She had always registered as petite to him. Fine bone structure, delicate hands. But now, without her heels and in the airy top and flowing skirt he had selected she was almost fairy like.

He gave a little irritated grunt as he held the police tape up for her to duck under, ignoring her confused look. Flights of poetic fancy were also not his forte. Crime, however, was. He needed to focus on the task at hand. A dead woman and a mystery to unravel.

Captain Gregson was inside the little storefront that proudly promised fortunes told and psychic readings. He glanced up briefly when they entered, looked a bit worn around the edges, suit jacket long gone and shirtsleeves rolled up in an attempt to combat the heat. “There you are,” he said, voice irritated as usual. “CSI is chomping to take the vic away so do your thing quick. And I’ve already heard three versions of the ‘guess she didn’t see this comin’’ joke so save it.”

They moved past him into the back room where Sherlock presumed the “readings” occurred. The victim was sprawled inelegantly on the little wooden table, shards of bloody glass around her. Watson went to the body immediately, snapping gloves onto her hands while Sherlock took a turn around the room, taking in the ridiculous decor and bric a brac. He was about to turn and ask Gregson a question when he heard Watson’s little intake of breath. “God,” she said softly, just enough distress in her tone to cause concern.

“What is it?” he asked, turning to her and coming to loom over the other side of the body.  
 She looked up at him, face twisted in disgust. “Her eyes and tongue have been removed.”

Sherlock straightened and glanced over at the doorway where Gregson stood. “Have there been any other murders with this type of mutilation?”

He shook his head. “Not recently. I’ve already called into the station, they’re pulling old files. Could be nothing.”

“Or it could be the first victim of a serial killer,” Sherlock finished, looking back at the body thoughtfully. “Aren’t you glad I got you out of bed for this?” That was directed at Watson.

She straightened, peeling her gloves of and giving him her usual glare. “Yes. I love examining mutilated corpses first thing in the morning. Sets the tone for the rest of the day.”

“What else does the body tell you?” he asked, watching her intently.

She gave him that look that meant she knew she was being tested but was willing to play along for the moment. “The crystal ball incapacitated her, but I don’t think it’s cause of death.”

Sherlock looked at the corpse, then at Watson, then back to Gregson expectantly. The detective nodded. “Our ME agreed. There’s a stab wound in the lower back. Hard to see with all the layers of clothing. He thinks it hit the kidney, woulda been a quick, not too bloody end.”

Watson was looked down at the dead woman. “That indicates at least a basic knowledge of anatomy. Medical background?” She aimed it at Sherlock and it was all he could do not to beam with pride.

“Possibly,” he confirmed. “Though it’s not completely impossible for a lay person to have such knowledge. Forensics remains a bit of a trend these days. Still, some skill is involved in actually using the knowledge. It’s an avenue to explore, once we’ve more information. What do we know of the victim?”

“Dr. Abigail Martin.” That was Detective Bell, coming in from a side room with a notepad. “Forty-three. Divorced, no kids. Next of kin is a sister we’re tracking down.”

“Doc-tor?” Sherlock asked, drawing the syllables out incredulously.

“PhD, not medical. Degree in comparative mythologies from Fordham.”

Sherlock turned his incredulity in Watson’s direction. “An advanced degree from a respected uni and she’s running a snake oil shop?”

“Do you see a lot of want ads for comparative mythologists?” she asked him blandly.

A fair point, he supposed. Still, “I think I’d rather starve.”

“She was found by her neighbor opening the floral shop next door,” Bell continued. “Saw the lights on and thought it was unusual. Said she saw her saying goodnight to a client around seven last night but no idea after that. We’re looking for an appointment book or computer, haven’t found anything yet.”

“So at seven last night she was hale and hearty and twelve hours later she was dead,” he mused. It was an obvious statement but even those could provide insight. “What do we know of the ex-husband?”

“Tracking him down,” Gregson rumbled. “Neighbor didn’t know anything about the divorce, thinks he lives out of state.”

“Probably a dead end,” Sherlock said, circling the room again. “The mutilation indicates ritualistic motive not a crime of passion. An irate ex would have been messier.”

“A knife to the kidney is pretty cold blooded. Pre meditated,” Watson added and he gave her an approving nod.

“Indeed. No, the ex may surprise us but my gut is telling me this is the first of a serial.” He looked to Gregson. “I have some of my own files to go through. Please let me know if your department finds anything of note. Come, Watson!” he called, heading out the door and into the already sweltering morning.

She hurried a little as she caught up to him on the sidewalk and he deliberately slowed his stride to make it easier for her. Eager as he was to get home and begin his research it would do him no good to leave her behind. “Do you really think it’s a serial killer?” she asked when they’d found their stride.

“Yes,” he said succinctly. “Removal of body parts are a classic trophy. It fits. The only questions now are why Dr. Martin for the first victim and who and when will the next one be.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to those who are commenting. I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. I've figured out how many chapters it'll be and will hopefully get them out pretty quickly. I'm already hearing scenes from a second story, so there will almost certainly be a sequel.

“This woman was brilliant,” Sherlock exclaimed, pacing as he read Abigail Martin’s doctorate thesis. “Truly brilliant in her field. She could have done anything. Author, teacher. Perhaps done some sociology or anthropology work. But she chose to gaze into a crystal ball and lie to people at thirty dollars a pop.”

Joan actually jumped a little at the vehemence with which he said “pop.” The man spat out ending consonants like they tasted bad. She sighed, looking up from the file she was reading. “Maybe she thought she was helping people,” she offered.

Sherlock turned on her, shoulders hunched up like a predator. “Helping? How does one help a person by reading their tea leaves?”

“Many people find comfort in superstition. They print the horoscope in the paper everyday-”

“Astrology is the mother of all pseudo-sciences. I can’t even-”

She spoke louder to drown him out. “And some people use fortune tellers as cheap, no pressure therapy.” His mouth snapped shut and he gave her his attention, still agitated. “It’s a way of getting guidance without having to admit there’s something wrong.”

He continued to stare at her, breathing loudly through his nose, in and out. She knew what he was doing, but she held his gaze, counting breaths. She was on seven when he spoke.

“You believe in this poppy cock, don’t you?”

She felt her face flush, even though she’d been expecting the accusation. She considered demurring somehow. But he would see through it, she was a horrible liar and Sherlock would likely respect a reasoned argument more then a fib. “I may have gone to a tarot card reader in my giddy school days.” He groaned and threw up his hands. “I’m not saying I base my life around it. But it’s fun to pretend. To see what they get right. I would think you’d appreciate it. They do the same thing you-” He gave her a look. “WE do,” she corrected. “Observe and deduce. They just make it enjoyable for the other person rather then incredibly awkward.” The last was said pointedly.

His hands were moving now, clenching and unclenching. Intimacy was a funny thing. It snuck up on you. Till one day you knew all of someone’s little tells and they could choose the perfect outfit for you. “Watson,” he spit out. “Comparing our work, ferreting out criminals, finding justice for victims, to compare that to a con artist pretending the cards told them you will find true love - I find that insulting beyond expression.”

“I’ve never been told I’d find true love,” she retorted. “In fact, a palm reader told me when I was in med school that medicine wasn’t my true path. Who the hell tells a med student that? And when. . . when I left surgery I always remembered that. And stupid as it may sound to you it gave me a sliver of comfort to think that maybe there was another path or purpose out there for me.” She shook her head, regretting starting this discussion. “I’m not saying she actually saw the future but maybe she got an, I don’t know, a glimpse. A feeling.” 

“For Godsake, Watson!” Oh boy, now his voice was raised and he was saying her name too frequently. She wasn’t sure why he did that. Maybe to remind himself who he was talking to. Or to remind her who he expected her to be. “You were a doctor. Are still a doctor for all intents and most purposes. You should be a bastion of logic. A debunker of fallacy. How on earth can you possible believe such a thing is possible?”

She folded her hands in her lap, watching him watch her. She didn’t know what to say to him, how to explain it. There were some things she just believed, logic be damned. Like knocking on wood, or wearing her lucky Mets hat for home games. But she knew he wouldn’t respect that. Sherlock didn’t believe, he knew. He observed and deduced. She doesn’t know if he’s ever had something he did just because he thinks it’s lucky. Right now, he was still waiting for her answer, so she said the only thing she could think of. The truth as she knew it, deep in her heart, that had lived there since she was a little girl reading fairy tales. “If I don’t keep myself open to the possibility of miracles. Of magic. Then I won’t see it if it happens.”

He continued to stare at her, but a lot of the fight was out of him. He huffed air through his nose one more time and turned on his heels, striding out of the room. She heard his tread on the stairs, loud but not stomping and then the thud of his bedroom door closing. She sighed and turned back to her reading.

***  

He emerged a few hours later, while she was chopping fruit for a parfait. “She WAS a teacher,” he announced.

A year ago that probably would have startled her into cutting herself. Now, after life with Sherlock, she didn’t even look up. “Who?”

“The medium. Dr. Martin. She did a guest lecture at her alma mater several times, the most recent of which the previous spring semester. It’s possible someone there may have information we need. Starting with her supervisor, Professor Antwerp, who is teaching a summer course as we speak. Taking into account travel time we should arrive at Fordham just in time to catch the end of his lecture.” He spun towards the door and she looked forlornly at her bowl of fruit before shoving it in the fridge and grabbing two apples to munch on the way.

Finding Professor Antwerp turned into a bit of a snipe hunt. Sherlock had greatly underestimated the time it would take to get to the university. When they got to the professor’s lecture hall it was empty, save for a few straggling students. Sherlock was able to ask one where Antwerp’s office was and they set out across campus to find it. There, Antwerp’s office mate told them the good teacher was working with a study group in the school’s main library. So it was back across the campus in the ever more oppressive heat to the ancient stone building that housed the library.

The student working the front desk was able to direct them to the study rooms upstairs, which turned out the be a rabbit warren of hallways and small rooms. Joan followed Sherlock down the third seemingly identical hall with sickly green tile and dingy white walls. They were looking for room 128F but had as yet not determined the logic behind the room numbering.

“I thought you thought this was a serial killer,” she said finally, tired of the sound of their footsteps and the buzz of the fluorescents above them.

“I do,” he said, peering at the hallway, then the number on the nearest room.

“Then why are we investigating as if she we killed by someone she knew?”

“Serial killers often start with someone in their circle. It’s how they establish their type and their pattern. It’s possible, of course, this person has killed before and we haven’t found the link yet, but working with the information I have, Abigail Martin is patient zero. Which means digging into her associates may uncover a lead.”

“But without knowing the trigger for the killer indulging in the murder how are we-” She stopped abruptly as with a loud hum and a thunk the lights went out, plunging them into total darkness.

Joan froze in place, disoriented. The sound of the lights had been irritating but now she missed it desperately. She thrust her arms in front of her, hoping to collide with her partner but found only open air. “Sherlock?” she said, wincing at how close to panic she sounded.

Immediately, warm fingers found hers, wrapping around her left hand, then the right, steadying her, anchoring her in the blackness. He was always so warm. She swore his normal temperature must be three to five degrees above hers. His hand slid up her arm, big and sure and oddly callused. He found her shoulder and she was aware of him as a wall of heat at her front. He tucked her other hand close, her knuckles brushing the soft cotton of his tee shirt. When he spoke it was in her ear, beard stubble scraping her temple as his mouth moved. “My stars, Watson,” he said softly, voice teasing. “Are you afraid of the dark?”


	4. Chapter 4

She was always so cold, even in the middle of a heat wave.

Sherlock supposed some people would apply the adjective to her personality, as well. Cold. Surgeons often were, what with not having to have a bedside manner. But he didn’t like to think of her as such. Watson cared far too much to be cold. He thought of her as tranquil. A calm lake with a tremendous amount going on underneath.

No, it was her skin that was cold. Always cooler then his. In winter she layered like she was going out to hunt walrus in the Arctic. And she would still blow on her hands or cup them around a mug of tea to warm them. He wondered if she wasn’t always on the edge of frost bite.

Right then, however, he felt her temper heat at his teasing, just as he’d intended. “No,” she replied sharply, the little girl quaver gone from her voice. “I’m afraid of injuries sustained stumbling around in the dark.”

He grinned, hidden in the black so she couldn’t see it. He didn’t think he had the stomach to hear her afraid, not his Watson. “Wise,” he conceded. “But there’s no need to stumble if you know exactly where you are.”

“And how would we do that? Even a cat couldn’t see in this little light. Or is echo location one of the languages you’ve picked up?”  
 Good Lord, she was entertaining when on edge. This close he could feel her respiration and heart rate were both still elevated, steady though her voice had become. A small, illogical voice inside him pointed out that could be due to proximity and not fear but he shushed it. True, they rarely touched and never this intimately or for this long. But these were extraordinary circumstances. He didn’t imagine simply holding his hand could cause a physiological response of this degree. No, he told himself. She was still frightened, blind and in a strange place. Time to do something about that.

“No, this is simply an offset of my main trick. Observation.” He shifted, releasing her hand but keeping a hold of her shoulder as he moved around her. He stood behind her, both of them facing the way they had been walking. His hands cupped her elbows lightly so she knew he was there, but otherwise he didn’t touch her. “Now. Picture the hallway.”

She blew out an exasperated breath. “Sherlock, this is the onetwothreefo- seventh hallway in three buildings we’ve been in in the last ninety minutes. You really expect me to-”

“Yes, I do. Because you are a detective and you are observant and you notice things. So. Describe the hallway.”

She sighed and went very still. He imagined she had closed her eyes. Or maybe they were darting this way and that in the darkness, hoping to pick out any bit of light or information. He could feel tendons in her arms moving, imagined her fingers drumming and flicking the air as she conjured up the picture. Lord, was she even picking up his nervous tics?

“It’s about seven feet across. Tile floor. Drop ceiling. The walls are dingy and broken up by doors at slightly irregular intervals. There’s no exterior windows,” she added with a note of disgust.

“Good. Go on.”

Another pause. “Ten feet ahead there was a branch off the left side, one door before it. It ends at a t-intersection perhaps twenty five to thirty feet beyond that. There’s two- three doors on the right wall before the end and a door in the ending wall almost directly in the middle.”

“Very good,” he said emphatically. Before Watson he’d never properly understood the phrase “swell with pride.” When she did this, when she proved his faith in her was not unfounded, he really did feel puffed up. Like his chest had expanded and he should announce from the rooftops that she is extraordinary and dammit, HE was the one who had noticed.

Instead, he added to her knowledge his own deductions. “The room we just passed was 125E. If I’ve deduced the non-Euclidean numbering system correctly the door on the t-intersection should be 128F and hold the elusive Professor Antwerp. And, with any luck, a window.”

He felt her nod, her pulse and respiration now within normal parameters. He moved her right hand onto the wall, then stepped beside her and took her left in his hand. It took only the gentlest tug to get her moving forward. He counted his paces in his head. At thirty two she faltered when she ran out of wall. He squeezed her hand and put his free one out in front of him. Two big strides and he found the wall, then the door. He traced the little plaque next to it and was gratified to find a one, a two, an eight and an F. He tried the handle and it opened easily.

Study Room 128F was a eight by seven closet, with a small square table, five mismatched chairs and a wide window overlooking the parking lot. The late afternoon light pouring through said window revealed a grey haired man and a young blonde woman sprawled in flagrante delicto on said square table. Watson gaped a moment, then covered her eyes as the other pair scrambled for clothing, shouting in indignation.

Sherlock looked down at his partner. “I rather preferred the dark.”

***

Professor Reggie Antwerp was a man in his early fifties, tall, with the slowly softening build of an aging athlete. He had wireless glasses and milky blue eyes. He was still mildly flushed, though from the heat or the embarrassing situation he’d recently been a part of Sherlock wasn’t sure. Watson was currently staring at him like he was something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe, which couldn’t be helping his mood. Sherlock nudged her a little and she schooled her features into something more neutral.

“Now, what is this about?” Antwerp asked, straightening his shirt for the fifth time.

“Doctor Abigail Martin,” Sherlock said after dispensing with the introductions. Antwerp’s special friend has vacated as soon as getting her garments in order, so it was just the three of them in Study Room 128F, lit by the slowly dimming afternoon light. 

“What about Abby? She teaches here, spring semester.”

“Indeed. I regret to inform you, you will need to find someone to replace her this coming year. She was found dead this morning.”

Antwerp paled noticeably. “Dead? Abby? What-”

“She was murdered,” Watson said. “We’re working with the police to find any leads. Was she well liked?”

Antwerp was blinking rapidly. “Yes- yes, she was. She was only a part time speaker, so she didn’t have a lot of friends here. But those of us that knew her liked her. She was a good woman. Kind. Very calm. Easy to talk to. I can’t imagine anyone-”

“What did she teach?”

“Uh, Divination Practices of Ancient Cultures. It’s a cross curriculum course, counts for Anthro and Religion so it’s usually pretty popular. It will be hard to replace her.”  “Were you aware of her, uh, day job?” Sherlock asked.

Antwerp laughed a little. “The fortune telling? Yeah. Her dirty little secret. But she liked it. Loved it. She said some of her clients had become friends. Claimed she was writing a book. Adventures from the crystal ball, or something. She was like that. A little quirky.”

Sherlock sucked his teeth. Nothing in the man’s demeanor indicated guilt. He spoke easily, fondly of his colleague. Of course, serial murders could be very good actors and even fond of their victims in some way. And he was a man who would sleep with one of his students, which could be lechery or sociopathy. Unlikely, though. “Was she having any financial problems? Conflicts with students? Anything out of the norm?”

Antwerp gave the question serious consideration, another check in the innocent column. Sociopaths always had their story ready and were remarkably quick on their feet when tripped up. His time with The Woman had confirmed that. 

He must have made some sort of unconscious reaction to the thought of her because Watson gave him a sharp look and shifted, her bare arm brushing his lightly. He didn’t look at her, now was not the time for a heart to heart.

Antwerp finally spoke, breaking the train of thought. “There was a student this spring. I don’t know if you’d call it a conflict. He passed the class. But she said he gave her a strange vibe. Very intense, asked a lot of questions.”

“Do you recall his name?”

He shook his head. “No. It might be in her class notes, I have a copy on my computer.”

Watson pulled a card out of her bag and put it on the table. “Email it to this address,” she said.

“Thank you for your help, Professor,” Sherlock added, turning to go.

“How are we going to get to the stairs?” Watson hissed in his ear.

Without a word he dug his cell phone out, swiped it on and selected his flashlight app. It lit up the hall admirably. 

Watson glared at him so hotly he feared she might peel the paint off the wall behind him. “You had that the whole time and chose to remain in the darkness.”

“I will always choose the option that allows you to flex your deductive muscles.” He aimed the light into the hallway and started forward. He heard her little noise of frustration and then she grabbed a fistful of his shirt, marching after him into the dark.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to all the commenters. I'm thrilled to hear you feel I'm getting the dynamic right. I've been writing for most of my life and Sherlock and Joan are one of the most difficult couple dynamics I've ever tried to write.
> 
> My kids were kind of distracting when I edited this chapter, so I apologize in advance for anything I missed.
> 
> This is the chapter I feel the real "ship" stuff starts in, just so you know.

Antwerp sent the class notes the next morning, about an hour before Bell called to let them know the Martin’s ex-husband was in Maine watching his son be born when his ex-wife was murdered. As alibis went, it was a good one.

Joan sat in her favorite chair, going over Dr. Martin’s class notes and jotting things on a piece of paper. She’d printed them out to make it easier to study them. Sherlock had taken over the couch and most of the floor with old case files, trying to find something that matched the MO. They worked in companionable silence through the morning. At one she stopped, fixed them sandwiches and the last of the fruit and put his plate in front of him. He ate mechanically and she doubted he even knew what he was tasting, but a win was a win in her book. 

It was “only” 100 degrees out, and his swamp cooler was doing an adequate job of keeping it relatively comfortable. Still, she was pretty sure the heat contributed to Sherlock dozing off on the couch, combined with lack of sleep the night before and a fully stomach. She cleaned up their plates and glasses in silence and went back to her reading, occasionally glancing at him as he slept. 

He slept better on cases, she’d noticed. He didn’t need a lot of sleep, she imagined five or six hours was a luxurious night’s sleep for him. But he slept more soundly on a case. Like a toddler who’d had a busy morning at the park and crashed early for his nap. His brain needed activity in order to properly shut down later.

About an hour had passed, based on how many pages she’d gone through, when he started to twitch in his sleep. Joan glanced at him, watching a moment. The motions slowed and he resettled, so she refocused on the notes. Only to drop them entirely when he shouted “No!” a minute later.

He’d had frequent nightmares, right at the beginning, after The Bitch and the fake overdose and all of that. Sometimes he’d yelled, often wordlessly, occasionally “Irene.” Once, unsettlingly, it had been “Watson”, echoed through the house several times in a panicked, heartbroken voice. She’d been halfway down the hallway before realizing it had to be a dream and not him actually calling for her. She’d stood outside his door, debating her options, before going downstairs to clatter around the kitchen so he’d know he wasn’t alone. He hadn’t come down or mentioned it later. But the nightmares had slowed after that, like he’d worked out the worst of his demons.

This wasn’t as bad as some she’d heard, but it was still bad. She stood and went to the couch, uncertain how to proceed. “Sherlock?” she said, voice just softer then normal speech. His eyes remained closed, pulse throbbing in his neck, body tense. She reached out and touched his shoulder.

He exploded off the couch, grabbing her wrists and slamming them both into the ground, knocking the air out of her. She gasped, staring up at him. He was heavier then he looked, pinning her to the floor, hands painfully tight on her wrists. His eyes were open now, but dull and unfocused, still trapped somewhere between dream and awake. 

She took a deep breath, purposefully filling her lungs to keep herself calm. She carefully uncurled her fingers and managed to touch his rough cheek with just the tips. “Sherlock,” she said again, softly, calmly.

His eyes cleared first, sharpening to the intense blue she was used to. The recognition flickered through them just as his hands released her and he pushed himself away from her, sitting on his heels. “Watson.”

She sat up, carefully flexing her wrists to get blood flowing into them. Her head and her back ached and she made a mental note to grab some Aleve once she had a chance. “You were dreaming,” she told him, probably unnecessarily. “I was trying to wake you.”

“And I appear to have accosted you. My apologies.” He reached out, slowly and took her hand, inspecting her wrist. “Do you need ice?”

“No. Let’s not waste ice on a bruise.” She carefully retrieved her hand from his. “It’s all right,” she added softly.

He didn’t meet her gaze, which she knew meant he disagreed and was mentally chastising himself. She decided she couldn’t help with that if he wouldn’t talk to her and stood, heading for the bathroom for her pain killer, then the kitchen for iced tea for them both. 

He’d gotten back on the couch by the time she returned and took the icy glass with a jerky nod of thanks. She went back to her chair and picked up the notes without a word. Out of the corner of her eye she watched him start to talk then stop himself multiple times before he resettled with his files.

He woke her the next morning with iced coffee and news of another murder.

***

Joan hated the morgue. It smelled like the hospital and not the pleasant memories. Not the recovering patient smells of flowers and freshly laundered linens. Or the doctor’s lounge odor of stale coffee and reheated pizza. No, the morgue smelled of chemicals and old blood and latex and death. Event the tray of instruments put her on edge. 

Sherlock frowned at the shrouded corpse as she picked up the ME’s file. “Gregor Neilsen. Twenty eight. Unmarried, next of kin are his parents.” She looked up from the file to look at Sherlock. “I thought serial killers stuck to a type?”

“They do,” he said grimly. “This is likely a different killer. I don’t know why Captain Gregson-”

“Oh God,” she whispered, eyes back on the file. 

“Watson?”

“His fingers and teeth have been removed.” She flicked over to the next page. “And he was incapacitated by a blow to the head and killed with a knife in his kidney.” She skimmed the rest of the report before raising her eyes to him. “Sherlock-”

He was glaring now, breathing through his nose. He turned and walked out, leaving her to drop the file on the counter and chase after him.

***

“It makes no sense,” he said for the third time, stalking around the first floor of the brown stone in an intricate circuit. She was reminded of a caged tiger, a cliched comparison, but an apt one. He always made her think of animals, large predators, mostly. She’d feel bad, but he’d likely think it was a compliment.

“Maybe it’s not a serial killer. Maybe he’s just. . . a spree killer.” She dredged the phrase up from the back of her brain. “Who likes trophies.”

“The fact that he takes trophies means he’s a serial killer,” he snapped. “But why different trophies? A tongue and eyes from one and fingers and teeth from the other. And one a woman and one a man? It makes no sense.”

“Personally, I’m unsurprised a person who murders people and hacks parts of them off makes illogical choices.”

“Maybe he’s trying to build a person,” he muttered, stalking away again as if he hadn’t heard her.

Joan shrugged, giving up. He didn’t even need her as a sounding board now. He was lost in his own head and a puzzle that didn’t even seem to have matching pieces. So she got up and went to put her running clothes on since she missed the opportunity earlier. It wouldn’t be a pleasant run, as the day was already starting to become uncomfortably hot, but she didn’t think listening to Sherlock spin would be any better.

Joan loved running, especially during a case. It was time to do nothing but think, and occasionally, between oxygen saturation and runners high, it provided her moments of stark clarity. Regrettably, no breakthroughs came to her, even though she pushed herself past her usual hour. The cool down portion of her playlist started when she was still a quarter mile from home and she allowed herself to slow, checking her pulse and her mileage counter.

Her running playlist was an eclectic mix of old and new favorites, rotated frequently to keep her from getting bored. As she walked, stretching her legs out to keep the muscles from tightening up, a blast from her past cycled through. It made her smile, bringing back memories from college and a house mate with an obsession with RUSH and the best stereo in the house. 

She realized she’d stopped walking the same time the lyrics started to hit her.

“Why does it happen?  
Because it happens.  
Roll the bones.”

“Oh, shit,” she breathed, then started to run again. 

Cool down is supposed to be slow, a time to get your legs used to their usual pace again. You aren’t supposed to sprint over ten New York blocks at your fastest pace, barely breathing, not thinking. But that’s exactly what Joan did. She ran to the brownstone like something was chasing her. A tiger, maybe.

Sherlock wasn’t in the living room, TV room or kitchen when she arrived. She peeled her ear buds out, tossing her ipod onto the couch as she ran upstairs. She found him in his bedroom, sprawled across the bed, catching a nap. She knew him well enough now to know he’d want to be woken up for this. “Sherlock,” she said, breathless, bouncing onto the mattress, jostling him awake. He blinked at her, confused and panicked until she added, “I know why he’s taking the body parts.”

That got his full attention. He went up on his elbows, bringing his face close to hers. She realized belatedly she was straddling his legs, leaning over him. She could worry about boundaries later. “The fingers. He didn’t want fingers. He wanted bones. Little bones. Same for the teeth.”

He shook his head slowly, staring at her like he’d never seen her before. “I’m lost,” he admitted and she was far too excited to appreciate the novelty.

The words tumbled out of her, breathless and borderline incoherent. “In some cultures, Norse, I think. Maybe Celtic. I read about it in Dr. Martin’s notes. They would tell fortunes with runes.” She rocked back on her heels, gesturing with her hands like she was acting out her words. “Carve little runes onto small rocks or bones and shake them like dice to answer questions. A fortune teller’s eyes and tongue. Phalanges and teeth. Divination Practices of Ancient Cultures. Roll the bones,” she finished, watching him for his reaction, the confirmation she desperately needed that she was right and not seeing hidden messages in nineties alt rock songs.

He was still staring at her like she was a new specimen, but now there was wonder in the gaze, the open mouth. Suddenly, he broke into a grin and sat up. “Brilliant.” He caught her face between his hands and smacked a kiss on her lips. “You’re absolutely brilliant,” he announced, scooting out from under her and rolling off the bed. “Now we have somewhere to look!” he called over his shoulder, leaving her kneeling on the bed, reeling from the kiss, the revelation and the sudden intense cramps in her legs.


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock could hear Watson puttering about the second story. He followed her footsteps leaving his room, detouring to hers, then heading into the bathroom. Then the clunk and rattle of the pipes as she started a shower. He stopped listening then, studying his shelves for any books that might help him.

The kiss had not registered until he hit the library and by then it was far too late to go back up and explain himself. He told himself she wouldn’t read anything into it as he started pulling down volumes and tossing them to the floor. It had not been a kiss of passion or seduction. It had been the initial, impulsive action of a teacher proud of his student. It had been a mistake of aiming that it had landed on her mouth. It could have just as easily been on her forehead. Or cheek. Or even the back of her hand. She would understand that. And if she did have a concern he would explain it and they would move on. Simple. No reason to waste more mental reserves on it.

Expect that the little illogical voice started to talk again and told him that maybe it hadn’t been that innocent. Maybe it had been the release of certain urges he was starting to notice in regards to Watson. Maybe he wanted to do it again, properly this time. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

He hated that voice. He wished he could tear it from his psyche and banish its whispering forever. He blamed it for his blindness where The Woman was concerned. It had spoken a great deal when they were together, allowing him to ignore tiny signs. Brush off observations that might have warned him long ago what she was. What she might do to him.

But Watson isn’t The Woman. She’s Watson. She’s more then The Woman ever was. Less in some ways, too. But so, so much more. She’s his partner. His confidante. The person who sees the things he misses, who turns the puzzle piece so it fits properly. Who argues with him and challenges him and surprises him. He trusts her beyond logic and feels the burden of her trust in him. He doesn’t want The Voice talking about her. (And bloody hell, now he’d capitalized it, given it a bloody title so he’s stuck with the bleeding thing.) 

Of course, The Woman could do all that, too. A mind to equal his own, perhaps even surpass it, if you thought creating the puzzle was harder then solving it. But her observations were always calculated, even when she was living as Irene. She studied so she would best know how to play a person or a situation. There was a cynicism to it that soured something he treasured. Watson treasured it, too, he knew that. The chase, the puzzle. The moment of stark clarity when the pieces fell just right and you SAW. He’d seen that upstairs, the unbridled delight in her epiphany, turning her babbling and incoherent and utterly irresistible.

 Which, The Voice said rather smugly. Brought him back to the kiss.

Her tread on the stairs broke his train of thought and he glanced back as she entered the room, braced for the discussion. The question. The redrawing of boundaries. He just hoped he could ignore any advice The Voice wanted to give him.

Instead she bent gracefully and picked up one of the books he’d tossed onto the floor. “The Complete Book of Psychic Arts,” she read off the cover. She looked up at him, book loose in her hand. “Why do you even own this?”

Her voice was entirely normal. No hint of withdrawal. No quiet concern or reluctance that signaled the beginning of a very serious discussion. He was surprised for the second time that day, though the emotion he had felt earlier in bed when Watson had managed to express her deduction surpassed the normal definition of “surprise” by leaps and bounds. Maybe she had come to the same conclusions he had. Had realized the gesture had been innocent, if ill thought out and saw no need to worry about it. Really, he needed the give her more credit.  
 He hopped down from his perch. “One cannot debunk charlatans if one does not know their methods,” he told her. 

“Okay. Why are you digging it out now?”  “Your break-through of course! He’s taken the parts for two means of divination but there’s no reason to believe that’s all he’ll take. There are dozens of fortune telling rituals in the world and far too many of them include gore and viscera. There’s more victims on the horizon and we need to find them before he does.”

She nodded slowly, looking over to her chair, where Abigail Martin’s notes still sat. “I understand trying to deduce the other likely methods but how will we find the new victim? There’s no link-”

“Ah.” He waved a finger. “But there is. Abigail Martin was a fortune teller, a medium. And she lost her eyes and tongue. You said it upstairs.” He faltered slightly at the mention but she didn’t react so he plowed on. “The eyes and voice of a fortune teller. To see and talk to the spirits. The body parts lost linked with her profession.”

Understanding lit her face and she put the book down to go look through his files. “Gregor Neilsen, what did he do?”

He smiled, weighing letting her rummage for the new file they’d gotten this morning, but relented in the interest of expediency. “Mr. Neilsen was a writer. A very particular kind of writer. For the newspaper.”

She froze and looked over at him, face a mix of horror and understanding and perhaps a touch of amusement. “No.”

“Horoscopes, Watson! The man wrote horoscopes.” 

***

It took just over an hour for Watson to tire of the New Age spacey writing style of most of the research books. She escaped back into the late Abigail Martin’s notes, claiming she was almost done.

Sherlock stuck with the books, writing notes and pinning them to the wall. It was disheartening to discover how very many divination procedures required the use of body parts. He was up to perhaps four potential methods and was now staring at the wall, hoping for inspiration to strike regarding potential professions that might correspond to them.

He was distracted by Watson’s hum. He refocused on her, tabling the mental track he’d been on. That was the hum she gave when she’d made a breakthrough, but wasn’t sure enough of it to mention it to him. He listened to her flutter papers and shift around. Then she made her second sound, more a little squeak or peep in the back of her throat. That meant she was sure of the connection and forming her argument for him.  
 He turned to find her standing by her chair, flipping through her notebook. “I think I found the student Antwerp mentioned. The intense one that creeped out Dr. Martin.”

“Do tell.” It was better to let her talk then try to pull it from her.

“She doesn’t use full names but there’s someone she refers to as HH that seems to have been sending up red flags. She mentions some of his questions being inappropriate. And his final paper focused on sacrificial divination practices and she describes it as ‘gore discussed in lovingly horrifying detail.’”

Sherlock was beginning to think he might have liked Dr. Martin had he known her in life. Despite her ridiculous career choices she had a good mind and a gift for the written word. “Do we have any idea who HH is?”

“Antwerp sent her class list over with the notes. There’s a Harold Harper. He’s the only one with HH for initials. Some of her other student names match up with her other codes so I’m pretty sure that’s her pattern.”

Sherlock nodded sharply. “Good. A decent lead. Nothing we can call real evidence but a lead is all I need.” He looked back at the wall. “Why don’t you call the good Captain and see if he can get us any information on Mr. Harper.”

She nodded and went to the other room to call. He watched her out the corner of his eye. Still no insistence on talking about the earlier incident. It appeared she really was just going to let it go unexamined.

He absolutely was not disappointed in that, no matter what The Voice might say.


	7. Chapter 7

Joan was used to The Wall looking a little crazy. Hell, when Moriarty was still a mystery he’d had Napoleon up there. But Sherlock’s columns of sacrificial rituals and the possible body parts needed for them was up there for crazy.

They were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor, peering at the lists. They had been like this for almost three hours. They’d received a copy of Harold “Hank” Harper’s final paper and were able to limit the potential rituals to the ones listed there. He had already done the eyes and tongue of fortune, which apparently had it’s roots in some Greek myth. The Nordic runes they’d sussed out on their own. That left divination via internal organs - also Greek, she was starting to think she needed to revise her mental image of Greek society. And finally driromancy. The telling of fortunes through the dripping of blood. 

Joan really hoped they caught him before he got to the last one. She honestly didn’t think Sherlock could handle an exsanguination right now.

Right now they were trying to brainstorm what kind of person you would kill for particularly precognitive organs.

“I don’t know about you, Watson,” Sherlock said, breaking a very long silence. “But I’m in the mood for barbecue. Care to split a rack of ribs?”

She groaned and smacked his knee with the back of her hand, making him rock to the side a little. “I think I’m sticking to salad for the rest of ever.”

“Your moments of squeamishness never cease to amaze me. How did you get through medical school?”

“Being a doctor is different,” she said defensively. “I was healing the bodies I was taking apart. Repairing a vein or a wound or removing a diseased piece so that the rest could thrive. I could detach and focus on the problem.” She frowned, looked at the wall blankly. “I know that sounds cold. I don’t mean that my patients weren’t people to me, but when I had them on the table it had to be about the problem I was fixing and not the person I had open. When I see victims, the bodies, they’re people. I can’t detach from them.” 

“Nor should you,” Sherlock said quietly, voice rasping a bit. She didn’t dare look at him. “Apologies, Watson. I shan’t tease you about it again.” She gave a quick nod and he hopped to his feet. “However, I was serious about the need for food. I think we’d both do with a change of scenery. What do you say to a stroll down to that dreadful salad buffet you seem to enjoy?”

She peered up at him. “Seriously? You’re willing to go to the salad place?”

“Just this once,” he confirmed. “Once we’re onto a case not involving viscera I’ll return to mocking it as is my right.”

She nodded and got to her feet. “I’ll take that.”

***

After dinner they caught a cab to the precinct to examine the file Captain Gregson had managed to put together on Hank Harper. “You think this is the guy?” he asked when he handed it over.

“It’s the best theory we have right now,” Joan told him. Sherlock was too engrossed to listen to conversation. “He was a student of the first victim and his paper on divination techniques reads like a horror novel.”

Gregson hmmed. “Well, he wasn’t at his place when we rang the bell. I have a couple guys on stake out. Providing they don’t pass out from heat stroke we could get lucky, catch him coming home.”

“The heat’s supposed to break tonight,” Joan offered.

“Yeah, I heard that before.”

Sherlock continued to read the file in the cab home and on the couch once they’d reached it. Questions went unanswered so she turned her attention back to the wall o’ crazy to see if the break had done any good.

“His father was a butcher,” Sherlock finally said conversationally, as if he hadn’t been mute for the last forty minutes.

“Harper’s father?”

“Yes. It could explain the precision of the killing blow. And the cuts. Perhaps his father passed along some knowledge.”

Joan’s stomach was not up for a discussion of butchering. She stood. “I’m going to run to the bodega for some snacks.” She had a feeling this would be another long night. “Do you want anything?”

“I’ll text you if I think of it.”

She shook her head. “My phone is almost dead, I’m leaving it here to charge.” He looked up at her sharply. “It’s a ten minute walk,” she reminded him. “People did it all the time before cell phones were invented.”

He grunted. “Ice lollies,” he replied. “The orange and cherry ones, not the pineapple.”

She hid a smile. He really was five years old sometimes. “Got it.” She grabbed her bag and headed out the door.

***

When she returned to the brownstone it was dark as were the houses around it. Another rolling blackout. She sighed, letting herself in and finding her way by the dim evening light coming in the windows. She put the groceries away as quickly as possible and noticed her phone buzz. She picked it up, noted it had barely charged, thanks to the power going out and read the texts from Sherlock.

Fnd cnctn. 

2 poss 4 3rd vic. 

Mt @ addy blw ASAP.

God, she felt dumber just reading it. Still, after all this time she was able to translate that he’d found the connection and had narrowed down two possibilities for the next victim. She sent him a quick text in acknowledgement and headed back out.

The sky opened with torrential rain halfway to the address. Her taxi got her most of the way there, but when traffic drew them to a halt she handed him his money and ran the last couple of blocks through the warm rain.

The address Sherlock had sent her belonged to a townhouse right on the edge of the respectable part of town. There were lights on in the first floor and the front door stood open. There was no sign of Sherlock as she climbed the steps and peeked in the door. “Hello?”

The front room was a mess. And not a-messy-person-lives-here mess, but a proper there’s-been-an-incident-here mess. Living with Sherlock for just shy of a year has taught her the difference. She pulled her phone out to dial Captain Gregson only to find it not responding to her repeated pushes of the home button. The battery had obviously given up.

She slipped it back in her bag and glanced back at the rainy street. She should just wait here for Sherlock and go in with him or call the police from his phone. She’s small and unarmed and going into a dangerous situation. She looked back at the wrecked living room. Someone might be hurt and this might have nothing to do with the case they were working on. Medical help now, even the basic aid she could provide without equipment, could be the difference between life and death.

She stepped inside the room, just one step, then the other. “Hello?” she called again. 

She registered the smell of blood in the air the same instant she heard the faint “Help,” called from the back room.  
 She forged further into the living room. It was probably cluttered and hard to negotiate on the best of days, a muddle of sofas, loveseats, curio cabinets and antique end tables. She skirted an ugly green ottoman, following the smell of blood to an open doorway that appeared to lead to the kitchen.

A second smell, one she also recognized, hit her when she reached the door. It took her precious seconds to place it, even as she saw the body on the table. An older man, sprawled on the kitchen table, arms flung out to either side. His shirt was ripped open and there was a long gash across his stomach. That’s when she realized the second smell was that of viscera. Guts. Intestines. The ugly smell she hated in the morgue and operating room alike.

The man on the table with his insides on the outside was dead. She could tell that from here. Which meant the little help she had heard seconds ago had to have come from the other man. The one standing beside the table with a knife in his hand and blood on his clothes. Who was grinning at her.

Faced with a madman with a knife Joan’s mind seemed to splinter into different voices, all yelling and clamoring at once. One was just telling her she was going to die and berating her for never taking those defense classes Sherlock had wanted her to take. Another was clinically taking in the scene, memorizing the details as if they might matter. A third was bargaining, with God, the higher power, whoever was listening, to please, please let her live through this. And a fourth voice, who was very loud and sounded a great deal like Sherlock, was telling her to move, grab a weapon, run, do SOMETHING and not just stand there like and idiot and get stabbed.

That last voice finally got her attention, just as the man with the knife lunged for her. She moved, bringing her hands up and meeting his, shoving his hand away at the same time she turned and dodged. White hot pain split her side and she gasped. The knife moved again and she stumbled back a step to avoid it, trying to knock it aside again. This time the pain was in her hand and it gave her the clarity of mind to lift a foot and slam it into his knee. She felt the patella shift with the blow and the man stumbled, cursing.

Joan turned and fled a few steps back into the living room, waiting for the knife to be buried between her shoulder blades, or possibly driven into her kidney. She got four steps, a hand on the back of a Queen Anne love seat when the power went out.

She heard the killer curse behind her and moved as quickly and silently as she could, ignoring the throb of pain in her side every time she stepped. She used the love seat to guide her past the ugly green ottoman, to the bright red corduroy couch and hid behind the it, sinking to the ground with a hand over her wound.  
 She could feel blood running down her side, hot and sticky and reassured herself that running was better then gushing. If she was lucky it was a superficial wound, muscle only and easily stitched. That was what she told herself to keep panic from rising.

 

She pressed her forearm over her mouth to muffle her breathing, listening intently for her attacker. He appeared to be staying still, trying to get his bearings. It wasn’t as dark as it had been in the university hallway, but it was close. His eyes would adjust eventually and she needed to use the time to plan, to figure out how to get out of here but her brain wouldn’t cooperate. It decided now was the time to have her life pass before her eyes and for some reason it wanted to start with Sherlock.

Sherlock toying with a knife talking about torture and murder and frightening clarity.

Sherlock letting her hold his hand and saying what she does is amazing.

 

Sherlock telling her he’s better when she’s around.

Sherlock sitting with a bullet wound in his shoulder, telling her about The Bitch.

The last one caught her breath, spun the rest of the thoughts out of her head. She had been calm and cool bandaging him up, listening to his tale. It wasn’t until later, much later, that it had hit her. He could have died. The bullet could have taken a different path. She could have come home later, too late. And then the world would be missing one Sherlock. The idea of it had brought her to the edge of a panic attack.

She didn’t want to think about Sherlock’s reaction to her dying. She doesn’t think about their relationship often. Thinking about it is confusing, a puzzle neither of them can properly sort out. For now it’s enough that it’s there and real and neither of them needs to think about it for it to keep going. But she doesn’t know what a world without Joan Watson would do to him. She makes him better. She is the empirical difference in his decisions. Without her. . . she doesn’t think she’d recognize the Sherlock that would be.

 Right. So. No dying. Sherlock can’t live without her and she won’t make him. The thought brought her back to the present The arguing voices in her head quieted so only the last one, the one that sounded like Sherlock (and who knew she’d ever be happy about having a Sherlock-voice in her head) was talking.

You are a detective and you are observant and you notice things, it said in a firm British tone. She could almost feel the heat of him against her back and the rasp of his hands on her elbows. 

She closed her eyes and pictured the room. She was behind the red couch and looking at the south wall. The front door was at the west wall. There was a chaise lounge in an awful shade of gold along that wall. In the corner there was a cabinet with Hummel figures. 

There was a thump to her left and she jerked her head. The killer cursed and kicked something that slammed into her couch. Mr. Ugly Green Ottoman. Okay, now she knew where he was, coming up the other side of the couch. What else is over there?

Her eyes darted to the large shadowy shape she can just make out now that her eyes have adjusted. She smiled slowly. Very good, said the Sherlock-voice.


	8. Chapter 8

Ms. Virginia Smythe, Hank Harper’s former girlfriend, had been sympathetic and as helpful as she could be, but ultimately hadn’t known anything. Sherlock had lingered long enough to see her pack a bag and get in a cab to take her to her new boyfriend’s house. He was fairly confident she’d have a measure of safety there. If Gregson’s stakeout didn’t catch Harper by the next morning he’d suggest a police watch for her until the man was caught or exonerated.

He hurried along the sidewalk, eyes peeled for a cab, now late to meet Watson as Mr. Santelli’s house. He hoped she didn’t lecture him too long about manners when he finally got there. Maybe if she gave him a chance to explain about seeing Ms. Smythe off she’d give him the short version.

He was still scanning for a taxi when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out to find a text from Watson.  
 Killer here bleeding help.

He stopped in his tracks, reading it again, then a third time. Watson didn’t text in short hand. She used full words. Punctuation. He’d once received a lengthy one that included a semi colon. She didn’t send a sentence fragment. Unless, apparently, she was in the house with a deranged killer.

He called Gregson. He wasn’t sure exactly what he said but he got the important part out. The address. Watson in danger. The serial killer. Then his phone was back in his pocket and he was running.

Santelli lived five kilometers from Ms. Smythe. A good runner, someone who ran races, could likely do it in a half an hour or less. He estimated Watson could do it in about forty minutes, depending on conditions. Sherlock was not a runner, it would take him closer to an hour. And while the police would be there in minutes, or so Gregson had promised, they weren’t Sherlock. And he very much needed to be there.  
 Still, he ran, eating up almost a quarter mile before catching a cab and giving the driver the address and a hundred dollar bill to get him there promptly. The ride would have been terrifying under other circumstances but Sherlock didn’t even notice.

Killer. Bleeding. Help.

The blocks leading up to the address were dark, another rolling power cut. Sherlock could see the red and blue lights at the end of the street. He barked for the driver to stop and got out, barely remembering to slam the door shut before running again.   
 There were three ambulances. Why did there need to be three? He ducked under the police tape, shoes skidding on the wet pavement. A uniform he didn’t know tried to stop him and Sherlock pushed past him in time to see a gurney with a sheet covered body on it being wheeled out of the house. The sheet was already starting to stain with blood.

He was still trying to convince himself that the body had been too big, too lumpy to be hers when Detective Bell caught his arm. “Hey, Holmes. Breathe. She’s over there.” He pointed to the farthest ambulance. Sherlock moved toward is as if in a daze. Someone had slung a tarp over the open rear doors and an EMT was bent over a gurney, working on someone.

He began to run again when he recognized Watson’s skirt and sandals as the ones on the gurney. The skirt, a pleasant white and blue abstract pattern, was now stained with dark red blood. She was on her right side, half propped on an elbow and watching the EMT intently as he stitched something on her side. Her shirt was cut almost in half, soaked through with more blood. Her left hand had a large white bandage wrapped around it.

She saw him when he was still a few feet away and she smiled. The real smile. The one that split her face and crinkled her nose and eyes. The one he rarely ever saw. And even pale with blood loss and bright eyed from pain she was breathtakingly beautiful.

He stumbled the last few steps to her, reaching to touch her face. It was inappropriate, he knew that, but right then he needed to touch her. He half crouched, half kneeled by the gurney, flattening his palm on her cool cheek. “Watson.”

She lifted her injured hand and touched his jaw with the bare tips of her fingers, like she had the other day when waking him from the nightmare. “Sherlock,” she said softly.

He wondered if she had any idea how much emotion she put in his name. No one had ever said his name in so many different ways. Frustrated, angry, affectionate, worried, indulgent. Ways no one has ever said it. He curled both hands around her wrist, below the bandage and rested his forehead on the this gauze. “Are you-”

“I’m fine,” she said, emphatic.

“Twenty three stitches and counting is an odd definition of fine,” the EMT muttered, not looking up from his work.

Watson glared at him briefly before looked back at Sherlock. “It’s a superficial wound. And the one on my hand is hardly worth mentioning.”

She was lying. He could always tell. Her eyes were bright with pain and there was sweat on her brow. The skin of her wrist was cold and clammy. She had lost blood and was in pain but she lied to soothe him. “What happened?” he rasped out.

“Miss Watson caught your serial killer.” Gregson was standing behind him, watching him kneel before Watson like a supplicant. Sherlock found he didn’t particularly care. “Not in time to save Mr. Santelli but-” He shrugged. “She pulled a bookcase down on him.”

Sherlock lifted his head swiftly to look at her face, her expression now mischievous. “How on earth-”

“There was a metal poker next to it,” she said. “I used it as a lever.” She flinched at something the EMT did and laid down, pillowing her head with her good arm. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”

“Sherlock,” Gregson said quietly. “You and I are going to renegotiate the proper procedures for consulting detectives.”

“Yes. Of course. Yes.” The Captain was trying to be threatening, but Sherlock didn’t care. The man could yell at him all he wanted. Rake him over the coals. Perhaps he’d even punch him again. It would be penance, he told himself, pressing Watson’s wounded hand to his forehead again. He deserved far, far worse.

***

 

The next three days convinced Sherlock of the veracity of the phrase “doctors make the worst patients.”

Watson had spent the first twenty hours in bed due to a combination of powerful pain killers and sore muscles. It was a soothing time for him, watching her while she slept, fetching her food and drinks and reading material when she woke. But eventually she’d chafed at the inactivity and insisted on coming downstairs. And then the arguing had begun.

He supposed arguing wasn’t the correct term. They didn’t really raise their voices or have any degree of anger behind their words. It was more. . . bickering. Like an old married couple. Over the temperature of the house. (Now that the rain had broken the heat he had retired the swamp cooler but it was still warm and their disparate core temperatures lead to disagreements.) Over where she should sit and for how long and what, exactly, “too much exertion” meant. If he was being totally honest he could admit that he picked a few of the discussions just for the joy of disagreeing with her. To hear her voice, irritated as it may be, after thinking he might never do so again.

It came to a head Tuesday afternoon, three days after the stabbing. “I just want to go for a little walk while the rain has let up.” Her voice was extremely calm and patient, like she was talking to an over excited child.

“Nonetheless, Watson, I think that perhaps another day or two of rest is in order before you try to maneuver the streets of New York.”

“Just to the bodega and back. It’s a ten minute walk.” She paused, frowning at him when he remained unmoved. “Fine, come with me. I’ll buy you an ice lolly.”

He knew she used the British term to appease him but he would have none of it. “It’s a ten minute walk each way. And you’re still in pain because you refuse any painkillers so I don’t think-”

“I’m not in pain-”

“You still have that ridiculous pillow pressed to your side so I know that to be false!” The purple decorative pillow had appeared her first day downstairs, pressed to her wound. She’d explained it eased the pain when she inadvertently used the injured muscles. An old post-op trick she’d called it, pressing it into her ribs when she chuckled.

“Exercise is good for recovery. I know you blame yourself but you can’t-”

“Of course I blame myself,” he roared, startling her into stunned silence. “I blame myself because it is entirely and one hundred percent my fault you have thirty two stitches in your side and what I am certain is a permanent scar on your hand. So I will do everything in my power to ensure your recovery is quick and without complications, your stubborn pride or no.”

She took a long slow breath. “Sherlock. I walked into that house. I knew it was stupid and dangerous and I did it anyway.”

“Yes, so you’ve said. But you would not have been at that house if it weren’t for me. I gave you address, asked to meet me there and was then late. I deduced the next victim. I pursued this case and drew you into it. I fell into a depression after the incident with The Woman, making you eager to please me and draw me out.” She flinched slightly at his mention of The Woman, as she always did. For a long time he hadn’t understood why, since the case should be a point of pride to her, her crowning moment of deduction. Eventually, it had occurred to him that she flinched because the events had caused him pain and that was enough to taint her victory. “I asked you to stay as my assistant,” he continued. “And made it as attractive an offer as possible to ensure your acquiesce.” He flung out an arm. “I can go all the way back prior to our meeting, if you like. I was the one who fell so deeply into addiction it required the hiring of a sober companion. It IS my fault, Watson. There is no way to look at this that doesn’t indicate that if you never knew me you would not have been injured this way. I told you once that if anything happened to you that I would not forgive myself. It appears my hypothesis was correct.”

He stood, breathing heavily, as she stared at him. Her face was blank, that cool, neutral expression he still had trouble reading. She could be furious, or stunned, or sad, or agree with him, or worried he was on the precipice of doing himself harm. She turned without a word and walked to the stairs, gait slow and uneven.

Sherlock blew out a breath, sinking slowly into the armchair she favored. He should apologize, though for what exactly he wasn’t sure. For fussing, he supposed. Were their situations reversed he would have struck back at the behavior long before this. Probably by sneaking out of the house and ripping his stitches open. His shoulder twanged as if to remind him how he had treated her when he was the invalid. 

He should let her walk. He should let her do as she wished. She thought of him and his needs far too often. At the crime scene the EMTs had wanted to take her directly to the hospital and she had refused to let them, insisting they stay until Sherlock arrived and could see her. Captain Gregson had told him that during their “renegotiation of consulting detective procedures.” The conversation hadn’t been nearly as vitriolic as Sherlock had hoped, making it terrible penance. He suspected Gregson could see Sherlock was aware of the gravity of the situation and simply told him that from now on all leads were reported to the police, no matter how thin or shaky the evidence. It was a reasonable request and gave him permission to pester Gregson with inane theories. A win-win for all involved.

The conversation had also given him clarity and closure to the case. The murderer had indeed been Dr. Martin’s overzealous student, Hank Harper, looking to predict his glorious future through human sacrifice. Santelli had been Harper’s father’s boss, had fired the man without cause when Hank was a teenager, leading to the father’s decline into alcohol. Dr. Martin, of course, had been his inspiration. And Gregor Neilsen had bullied him as a child. Once Sherlock had realized there was a connection with the second victim he’d deduced who the other likely victims would be. The butcher for intestinal divination and the girl who broke his heart for blood. At least Ms. Smythe had escaped unscathed. 

Harper been arrested at the hospital, suffering a concussion and broken ribs from the bookcase Watson had sent crashing down on him. He would likely plead insanity, which was hard to argue against but still an unsatisfactory end to the slaughter of three people. Still, they’d stopped him in the end and Sherlock tried to remind himself that that was what mattered.

He heard Watson’s step in the hall and looked up in time to see her limp back into the room, mouth in a hard line. She went to him, shoved something in his hands and went to the couch, flopping onto it gingerly. Sherlock looked down to see she’d handed him a bottle of garish red nail enamel. “Watson?”

“You want to be punished. This is me punishing you.” She wiggled her toes and pointed to her feet imperiously. “Pedicure, Sherlock, now. And I wouldn’t say no to a foot rub while you’re down there.”

He stared at her a moment, marveling at her yet again. He stood and walked to the couch, sitting at the end and carefully moving her feet to his lap. It was possible she knew him better then he knew himself. Well enough, at least, to find the perfect balance of forgiveness and acceptance and blame and to give him an outlet for his overwhelming guilt. He rubbed her left foot, running his knuckles up the sole. She made a happy noise and he found her watching him. “I never asked how you knew I was in trouble,” she said softly.

His brow furrowed. “Your text message, of course.”

“What text message?”

“The one you sent me. ‘Killer here bleeding help’.’’ He could quote it from memory, would probably be able to do so for the rest of his life. 

She was frowning now, eyebrows drawn down to a vee. “I didn’t send you a text. My phone died before I got to the address. It was in my bag.”

He stared at her, incredulous, before carefully moving her feet off him and grabbing his phone from the table he’d left it on. He scrolled through the text conversations, found her and scrolled up and down, looking for the message.

It wasn’t there.

He fled to the kitchen, found her phone plugged into the charger and did the same with it, but there wasn’t any outgoing message to him with those words.

He went back to the front room, a phone in each hand, staring at her. “That’s not-” He looked back at the phones. He could talk to Gregson, see if he can have their cell records pulled. Maybe he’d deleted it in his panic. Gregson had also told him the first responders had found her on the porch, in the early stages of shock. She could have sent the text then, after incapacitating her attacker. Maybe the phone had had some life left in it, enough to send the message but not retain it. Maybe she’d typed the words and the memory had washed away in the shock and blood loss. Maybe-

“Sherlock?”

His name again. Her voice was small and worried, the way it had been at the university when the lights went out. He hated when she sounded like that. Uncertain. Afraid. She rarely does, which makes it much more of a blow when her steel and ice gets compromised. He looked back at her, sitting on the couch, looking fragile, a purple pillow in the shape of a lotus flower pressed to a wound that could have been fatal. She probably knew exactly what he was thinking, clever brain going down all the same paths. The only difference is she doesn’t want to follow them. She wants to have a quiet afternoon on the couch with him.

He thought about their conversation about the unknown. Being open to miracles. Magic. So that she can recognize them when they happen. There was almost certainly a rational explanation for the text. He could find it if he looked. He had known she was in trouble somehow. Even if there were such things as premonitions and fortune telling Sherlock Holmes would not be in possession of the gift. But maybe Watson would. Or maybe it wasn’t about one person but about the bond between two. Strong and complicated and undefinable. Maybe the universe had told him she was in trouble because he needed to know it, more then he needed the universe to be logical. And really, isn’t that a miracle? That there’s something in the world more important to him then deduction.

He put the phones down and rejoined her on the couch, scooping up the nail enamel at the same time. “Siren Red?” he asked, reading the label. “Really, Watson? I expected you to have more refined tastes.”

She smiled, relaxing, her death grip on the lotus pillow loosening. “I like red toenails.”

He unscrewed the cap and watched a drop of orangey crimson cling to the brush before closing it and returning to his foot rub. “There is red and then there is Siren Red. I am purchasing you more suitable colors later. The chemist next to the bodega has a reasonable selection of cosmetics. You can have your pick.” It’s a small concession, far smaller then abandoning a puzzle for her. He felt her hand on his neck, light and soft. The ring and pinkie fingers twitched slightly. Her injured hand then. Nerve damage was causing the twitching, hopefully it would fade as the hand healed. If not her surgical career was well and truly over. 

She squeezed him gently before removing her hand. A thank you. Acknowledgment of concessions big and small. She leaned back, eyes closing. “After you make me lunch.”

He grunted in acknowledgement, taking her toes between his knuckles and tugging. If the woman wanted a foot rub he would give her the best one she’d ever had. And so they sat, in companionable silence, the pattering of a summer rain storm the only sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurred to me while finishing this up that I may irritate some people with the ambiguity of the "miracle text." I tried to give a reasonable explanation for it and ultimately leave it up to the reader what they think the truth is. I know what I think happened. For me, the important part was Sherlock's reaction and decisions, not the answer to the mystery itself.
> 
> If I haven't totally alienated you then keep an eye out for a short interlude fic and then a proper sequel.
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading and commenting. I love to get feedback and you've all been really awesome and welcoming.


End file.
